So Why Do We Try So Hard?

Barbara Ehrenreich’s Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer (Hachette Book Group, 2018), is a sweeping and provocative manifesto, taking aim at everything from the positive-thinking, fitness, and anti-aging industries to the mindfulness trend to what she considers our rapacious for-profit health care system.

As a journalist, activist, and scientist (she held a PhD in cellular immunology) Ehrenreich believed in critical thinking and evidence. She made a career out of sticking a pin in whatever she considered inflated, unfounded superstitious beliefs driving individuals to waste time, energy, and peace of mind in an attempt to control things that are not actually controllable— our natural lifespan, for example, or health issues that may arise as we age.

Natural Causes was written at the end of a long, prolific career of journalism and civic engagement; it was Ehrenreich’s next to last book before her death in September, 2022. She was probably best known for her expose, Nickel and Dimed, named one of the top 100 books of the 20th century by The Guardian.

Natural Causes will be of interest to anyone wondering what dying gracefully might look like for them, to anyone diagnosed with cancer and their loved ones, or anyone interested in gender equality in health care. It’s also an example for activists who’d like to make positive change through their writing.

I had a different reaction to aging: I gradually came to realize that I was old enough to die…I decided that I was also old enough not to incur any more suffering, annoyance or boredom in the pursuit of a longer life…I exercise—not because it will make me live longer but because it feels good when I do.

At the same time there’s a lot that may cause dismay, discomfort, or disagreement. For example, anyone depending on doctors in order to function or simply stay alive may not be amused by Ehrenreich’s no-holds-barred takedown of the U.S. medical-insurance-pharmaceutical system in Chapter 1. Devoutly religious readers may be aghast when they encounter the last couple of chapters of the book where Ehrenreich, an atheist, questions the existence of God or even any divine presence at all. Meditators may be put off by Chapter 5, “The Madness of Mindfulness.”

“Cellular Treason” (Chapter 8) might be most disturbing of all. Here, Ehrenreich walks us through the proposition that the multitude of immunity cells which inhabit our bodies, rather than always communicating well together, may without notice begin behaving more like human beings around the globe: sometimes collaborative and other times disobeying instructions, “pitted against each other as well as external invaders.” Furthermore, Ehrenreich suggests, these rogue cells may not be subject to our attempts to bring them back to order via meditation or visualization, say, or pristine diets.

The message of Natural Causes: stop working so hard to dodge aging and death; allow yourself to enjoy this gift we call life; and this means thinking for yourself, prioritizing enjoyment over peer pressure, fads and propaganda.

A breast cancer diagnosis in 2000 propelled Ehrenreich into witnessing what she calls “the tyranny of positive thinking.” She sees no evidence that “sugar-coating” makes any difference. To Ehrenreich, cheerful patients may be more pleasant for others to be around, but all this brave smiling required that patients bury their genuine reactions of anger and fear. The forced optimism thus became a stressful performance with possibly unrealistic expectations that made patients more vulnerable to depression if things actually got worse in spite of their determined optimism.

Based on the pressure she experienced at this time, her book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America was published in 2009, and this skepticism about positive thinking shows up throughout Natural Causes, especially in Chapter 7, “The War Between Conflict and Harmony.”

After the publication of Natural Causes, Ehrenreich went on to write the final title of her lifetime: Had I Known, a collection of essays ironically published in March 2020 just as the pandemic arrived, for which so few of us were prepared. Ehrenreich died two years later at age 81. after suffering a stroke. Her passing leaves a huge moral and intellectual vacuum.

Chloe Archer is the pen name of a 77-year-old retiree living in Hardwick, VT.